Assuming that they carry on with unmodified slavery indefinitely, at what point in time might the CSA become diplomatically isolated and under significant international pressure to abolish slavery? The reaction to the Congo Free State indicates that, however hypocritically, there was a limit to what citizens of the European great powers were willing to approve of when it came to treatment of Blacks.
Confederate Victory: When does the Confederacy become a pariah state?
- Thread starter Victor Hatherley
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Brazil wasn't a pariah state as far as I can recall and it maintained slavery until 1889.
Ethiopia did get invaded a few times and slavery was pointed to as a reason for this, but I would say if anything it was Italy that came out of this as the pariah.
My guess is the Confederacy becomes a pariah less bc of slavery and more bc it's almost certain to have an expansionist foreign policy in the Cartibbean against Spain and other powers. If they resume the international slave trade, it could change, but there were many reasons to think they wouldn't do this (it'd antagonize Great Powers, it would lower the value of existing slave property, etc)
Ethiopia did get invaded a few times and slavery was pointed to as a reason for this, but I would say if anything it was Italy that came out of this as the pariah.
My guess is the Confederacy becomes a pariah less bc of slavery and more bc it's almost certain to have an expansionist foreign policy in the Cartibbean against Spain and other powers. If they resume the international slave trade, it could change, but there were many reasons to think they wouldn't do this (it'd antagonize Great Powers, it would lower the value of existing slave property, etc)
Texas and Oklahoma oil will unfortunately prevent the Confederacy from being a pariah state in the early 1900s.
I think the Confederacy would be less of a pariah and more of just “not particularly popular.” They’d be an Anglophone Brazil, basically.
(yes this is the premise of my TL)
(yes this is the premise of my TL)
Never, see Brazil and other examples, even South Africa was economical collapse and the end of cold war till they changed their ways too
I would say after the Congo Affair has been publicized and they still see nothing wrong with that is when they become a pariah. So in the first decade of the 20th century, no later than 1910.
Id argue that could work… but only for so long. When you reach the 20s, it gets akward real fast.
Of those, brazil was the only one involved in the Atlantic slave trade and that style of chattel slavery, to my knowledge Britain only backed down on them because engaging in that war sounded expensive and they were already burning money... stopping the slave trade. (the slave trade was in decline of course but point being people in the west were after that form of slavery)
The CSA will be much weaker, have less coastline to deal with (and britain will have better presence to stop them) and the fact they saw slavery as a moral good versus a neutral business - which it wasnt but is still better than that- probably wont go well
Yeah it is important to note that culturally the attitudes towards the institution in Brazil and the CSA were worlds apart
I think you’d have seen some organic decline in the amount of enslaved persons by then, of course
Also, you have to keep in mind the Deep South and the Upper South weren't TOTALLY in-sync with each other over slavery. So whether or not the CSA would be a pariah may or may not depend on if the Deep South or Upper South is in charge.
I was just about to argue the opposite: the oil boom in Texas and Oklahoma will bring about a new wave of wheeler-dealers and oil gamblers, both locals as well as fortune seekers from the North, the Caribbean and Europe. Those that makes it rich will seriously upend the planters aristocracy. Those that don't will just make the whole state look like a bunch of thieves. And of course all of them will stir up trouble, reducing the South to a larger banana Republic..... And of course the slavery issue will just be the icing on the cake.
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The CSA explicitly banned slave trade. Other than three or four crackpot fire-eaters no one in the confederate political establishment wanted to revive the slave trade.
Deleted member 90949
Spain and Portugal also had slavery in 1865.
Brazil had banned the Atlantic slave trade decades before the Confederacy existed.
I don't know about the other countries, but Turkey and Ethiopia both practiced chattel slavery in this time period.
It'd be more than reasonable to assume that the south would try to move quickly to industrialize. The history of the cotton industry otl relied on New York's manufacturing and export. I think the confederacy after union recognition would still sell cotton primarily to the US at first while trying to build up it's own processing facilities and ports in the gulf until they'll become self sufficient and thus massively enriched (probably).
It has everything it needs. Iron in Alabama (about a quarter of Loraine's estimated amount. Though nowhere near as much iron in the Superior region the south has a comparatively tiny population next to the US), vast petroleum reserves, lucrative cash crops, and a large exploitable labor force.
Even if slavery is phased out and transitions to apartheid at some point and that still less to it being a pariah mirroring South Africa, South Africa did relatively fine. Not great, but it had a stable currency and no shortage of investors. And it didn't have petroleum or a land border with one of the world's largest economies (which would still become of the US), so sanctions would probably not even be as severe.
Hate to say it, but if the Confederacy doesn't get dismantled by the US at some point I think it'll do just fine economically.
Saudi Arabia outlawed legal slavery in the 1960s......
The last country to outlaw legal slavery did so in the early 2000s
As long as the confederacy had powerful allies and something people want to buy slavery alone is not going to make them a pariah state
The last country to outlaw legal slavery did so in the early 2000s
As long as the confederacy had powerful allies and something people want to buy slavery alone is not going to make them a pariah state
The almost certain as you put it would probably never happen unless the CSA wins VERY easily (as in even the Antietam may be too late) and real politic sets in. They know the USA outweighs them. They know they have a white underclass they need to keep happy and lots of dead bodies coming home from foreign shores won't do that.
Yeah there were some Confederates who thought who dreamed of this. But they were always a minority and they became more of a minority as the Confederate population dealt with reality.
It was a dream, but saying it is likely to happen is like someone looking at us 150 years in the future and assuming everyone alive now was gung ho about building Trump's wall and ready to grab their gun to round up illegals.
Yes, it was part of Confederate political discussion, but it was in the not quite a fringe position rather than "almost certainly."
The CSA could win very easily in many ways. Death of Lincoln, worse riots in New York, the union pisses off Kentucky into not allowing troops in their territory or even outright joining the Confederacy, European intervention. You don't have to have them win the battles of OTL. As an exercise of answering OPs question I think it's fair enough to just assume they've won and figure out the multiple directions they can go from there without discounting the less-than-absurd.
It's fair to assume they'd have expansionist policies, particularly starting with a Pacific coast through Mexico and then Cuba. Depending on how that would go they'd either move on to Latin America or stop right there. The Union, if it follows the policies of OTL, may also continue it's own pursuit of banana republics. CSA, if possible, would make NIMBY it's rhetorical policy, but it just may lead to a scramble. Both countries would have enormous incentives for a transoceanic canal at some point.
In a different alternate timeline things could go much worse for sure. The CSA wins at massive cost, Texas soon secedes, slave rebellions break out and are brutally put down, US intervenes and annexes territories without total reacquisition. At that point if the CSA is from Virginia to Florida to Louisiana you can forget about further expansionism. Depending on their treatment of the black folks we can find them in pariah situation if they even exist long enough to witness modern globalism.
It's fair to assume they'd have expansionist policies, particularly starting with a Pacific coast through Mexico and then Cuba. Depending on how that would go they'd either move on to Latin America or stop right there. The Union, if it follows the policies of OTL, may also continue it's own pursuit of banana republics. CSA, if possible, would make NIMBY it's rhetorical policy, but it just may lead to a scramble. Both countries would have enormous incentives for a transoceanic canal at some point.
In a different alternate timeline things could go much worse for sure. The CSA wins at massive cost, Texas soon secedes, slave rebellions break out and are brutally put down, US intervenes and annexes territories without total reacquisition. At that point if the CSA is from Virginia to Florida to Louisiana you can forget about further expansionism. Depending on their treatment of the black folks we can find them in pariah situation if they even exist long enough to witness modern globalism.